Chicagoist: Ask Chicagoist: How Are Polling Places Selected?

ColdChilli

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 14:34:10 -0600

My polling place is retirement home. No problem with handicapped access voting there. Only issue is that there isn't a sign out on the access road that you "Vote Here!"

FernLaPlante

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 14:17:49 -0600

My church polling place was smooth and uneventful as well. Hmmmm - perhaps voting in churches is the way to go, it seems all the problems happen at pool halls/laundromats/schools.

Chris

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 13:25:59 -0600

I voted at the Holy Name cathedral at the butt-crack of dawn this morning. It was a smooth and uneventful polling place.

michelle

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:48:42 -0600

After years of voting in schools, my move in 2000 saw me voting in a Laundromat. But that was topped in 2002 after another move -- I now vote in an aforementioned billiard hall.

navin

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:12:07 -0600

Well if you guys would've just answered me I would've stopped!

curmudgeon

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:00:40 -0600

When I went to vote I had to wait 15 minutes while the guy ahead of me tried to figure out which way to sign his name in order to match his registration. It took forever for him to get it right. All the time he was trying he kept yelling and wanting to know who was anti-abortion in the room. No one responded. It was a very weird experience; weirder than when I voted in a barbershop for my first election.

navin

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 11:38:47 -0600

My polling place is about as left as you can possibly get: New World Resource Center A republican's nightmare I'm sure.

S pol K

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 11:13:17 -0600

My polling place was on the second floor of a library and was run by a bunch of people who couldn't spell.

JAC

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 11:01:45 -0600

I'd say they just don't pay too much attention to the statutes. The polling station at the John Hancock is on the 44th floor, definitely not the ground floor. To get there you have to head into one lobby, pass the doorman to get through an electronic door, head up the elevators and through another lobby to the polling station.

s

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 10:30:49 -0600

er... "school" by my house... not church.

s

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 10:30:00 -0600

I went to the church by my house and it was insanely hot in there. It got me wondering if little kids have different temperature settings than adults... or that it was some sort of election day ploy by one side or the other. But most likely, I think, it's that somebody accidentally turned the furnace on too high.

FernLaPlante

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 10:18:47 -0600

My polling place is in a church (in the actual church sanctuary itself, among the pews and on the altar.) In order to get to it you must go up 12 tall concrete stairs. I have no idea how disabled people access this polling place (and this is East Lakeview I'm talking about.) As for the people in Boston that find voting in churches a violation of the first amendment, get over it. It's once every 4 years, cast absentee if you care that much. We don't have separation of church and state anyway, as evidenced by the fact that 'GOD' is on our money and Christmas is a governmentally recognized holiday.